Willem Dafoe Revisits His Idea of Wanting To Play a "Joker Imposter"

Over the years, fans have thought that Willem Dafoe would have made a great Joker in the Batman franchise, but the actor never really had the opportunity. He actually was considered at one point for Tim Burton’s Batman, but he was never offered the role.

The actor previously shared an idea he had to play the villain which he called a “Joker imposter” and he recently revisited that idea while appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to talk about his upcoming film Inside. When asked about the possibility of playing Joker, he jokingly responded, "Hasn't that been done?" He then went on to say:

"I floated an idea a while ago, but it didn't quite happen. I thought it would be cool for me to play an imposter, like slipstreaming his thing. But we're doing other things."

He previously explained the idea behind Joker imposter, saying:

"There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter. So it would be possible to have not duelling Jokers but someone that says to be the Joker that isn't the Joker. And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did. I fantasized about that. But other than that I am not talking to anybody [about it], you're the first one."

It’s an interesting idea and one that would work great for Dafoe, but it’ll most likely never happen. It’s fine, though, as Dafoe has had the opportunity to play a great villain in the Spider-Man films as Green Goblin. He was especially sinister in Spider-Man: No Way Home! His villainous performance in that was amazingly insane! So, he got to play an awesome comic book villain! At least we have his Green Goblin.